


More Than Flesh and Blood Can Endure

by borrowedphrases



Category: GARO: Makai Retsuden
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied miscarriage, Trying For A Baby, canon typical gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 12:06:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17100293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borrowedphrases/pseuds/borrowedphrases
Summary: Sometimes prayers are answered in unexpected ways.





	More Than Flesh and Blood Can Endure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlmostTransparent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmostTransparent/gifts).



> So this is not Typical of what I write, at least subject matter-wise, but the idea latched on to me pretty early on after I got my assignment, and then it just wouldn't let go.
> 
> I do hope my giftee finds some enjoyment in it! I absolutely adore this ship and am always delighted to have an excuse to write more for them.

She gazes down at him as her hips move, rolling in a slow rhythm, undulating atop him. His face is flushed and sweat slicks a sheen over his brow, bangs dampened to inky points as they cling to his skin. He's gazing up at her in absolute adoration and she trembles from it, draws strength from it. It's a heady thing, being loved so dearly, so deeply. She never thought she would know a love like this, and to have such love from a man like Tsubasa? Truly a wondrous thing.

"Jabi…" His voice is thick, almost raspy as he gasps for enough breath to give his words sound. One of his hands grips at her hip, not to guide her, simply to hold on as he rides the waves of her pleasure. His other hand is trembling as he lifts it, as his fingers brush her long hair off her bare shoulder. His palm glides along her heated skin, inwards to brush up along the curve of her neck. He cups her cheek like she's something precious, something to be treasured. Jabi isn't insecure, she's always been proud, always been sure of herself, but there is still something deeply moving about her lover's, her husband's, deep and unwavering love. She would find it wonderful if he were any other man, but because it's _him_ it means so much more.

"My love." Jabi rocks forward, feels his length twitch inside her. She clenches around him, the delicious slick heat between her legs aching for release. She leans forward when she feels him shake beneath her, when his hips begin to lose their slow steady beat, going quicker, going harder, finding that place inside her that can make her see stars. She whispers soft and sweet against his lips. "Please."

With a soft moan Tsubasa arches, thrusting deep as he spills. She rolls with his climax, spasming over him as she finds her own pleasure in the wake of his. Her own sounds are sharp and echoing, a cry of passion that some might find profound. She collapses atop him as the currents within her begin to calm, matching the gasps of her breath with the shuddering rise and fall of his chest.

They stay connected for a long span of moments, unwilling to slide apart even after their sweat has cooled and their breathing becomes the slow pattern of sleep.

↭

He glides his hand through her hair, the glossy strands trickling through his fingers like ink, always so smooth, even when it's a tangle from sleep. Her shoulder shake, and Tsubasa's heart breaks for her. There's no shame in tears, no weakness in breaking down from weariness and disappointment in his presence. If she couldn't cry in the privacy of their own bed, then he wouldn't deserve her.

"We'll try again." Tsubasa murmurs softly, kneading his fingers into her scalp to help soothe her toward rest. It's late, they're both tired and sore, and fatigue can't be making it any easier for her to hold back her sadness. Sliding closer to her, he carefully wraps his arm around her middle, applying gentle pressure to her smooth stomach until she takes the invitation and moves to press the slop of her back to the strength of his chest.

He doesn't say more, just lets her cry until her tears are spent, then wipes them away with gentle swipes of his thumb beneath her eyes. He holds her as her breathing eases, as her shoulders loosen out of their tensing. His calloused palm rubs circles over her middle, trying to lull her to sleep as one would a puppy.

"I want to give you a son." Jabi's voice breaks through the silence, and there's a vulnerability to it that he's never heard from her before. "Someone to live up to your title."

"No." Tsubasa hushes her, leaning in to press soft, lingering kisses to her hair, to her ear, to the side of her neck and the line of her jaw. "It's not about having a son. I don't care about raising a knight. He, or she, could wield a brush instead of a spear and I'd be just as happy and proud, because they would be _ours _."__

____

↭

She clings to the headboard above her, the line of her back curving bow-like as she arches off the bed. Her pleasure trembles deep in her belly, muscles spasming as they flex, like her body is trying to draw him in deeper. She wants to feel his heat right down in her core, wants his climax to claim her. She wants their child, the child she's seen in her dreams for so many nights now, to _become_.

His fingers near bruise her sides as he grips at her, as he hold her close and drives each thrust into her with the same passion he brings into battle. She loves it, loves him, loves his aggressive pleasure and his need for her. He groans with each forward thrust, whimpers with each withdrawal, over and over again until she's lost all sense of where she ends and he begins.

"Oh, _oh_ , my love. I-" White light sparks across her vision, lingering like a burn when she closes her eyes against it. She loses her breath as her body writhes in pleasure, as her legs shake and her hips clench. She almost doesn't notice when he reaches his own peak, when he spills so deeply inside her that later she'll swear that it scalded her belly.

Tsubasa gathers her up when his climax begins to ebb, his strong arms lifting her up from the bed as he leans back on his heels. He's still buried deep inside her, can feel his release hot and thick around his softening length. She rests her head on his shoulder as she gasps, as she fights to draw enough breath to banish the stars from her eyes.

"Please." He can hear her whisper against his cooling skin. His heart aches over the desperate softness of that single word. He wants to create with her for all his own reason, but he thinks he wants it for her sake even more than for his own.

"Please." Tsubasa echoes her whisper, hand tangling in her hair. " _Please._ ".

↭

She clings to his night shirt hard enough to scratch the skin beneath it, her sobs echoing off the walls of their bedroom. Her whole body trembles in his arms, writhing in uncontrolled despair and a pain so deep it's as if her very soul has been shredded. She gasps and coughs and chokes on screams. She beats her fists against his chest and soaks his shirt. Tsubasa lets her, allows her to grieve against him as violently as she needs to. His own grief is a bitter bile on the back of his tongue, an acid in his throat. It's unshed tears staining his eyes near red as the blood that soaked into their sheets.

"What did I do wrong?" Jabi murmurs once her tears are all used up, her body limp against him. "We _made_ it. It was happening, and now… now it's over. It's _gone_."

He doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to comfort her through this when his own grief is just as deep. He swallows hard around the weight in his throat, and finally manages to croak out a few words. "You did nothing wrong."

She pulls back, not away, just far enough that she can gaze up at him. Salt coats her cheeks, her eyes are red and her nose is raw. He's never seen her so broken. He's seen her wounded, beaten, near crippled, on the precipice of death… but never _broken_. 

"I think you were right when we first met," Her words are slightly slurred by her lips sticking together from her tears, but he can make them out clear enough. "That I came back wrong. That I was - am now - an abomination."

"No." He cups her face in both his hands, makes sure her gaze meets his, that she can see the open honestly in his eyes as well as hear it in his voice. " _I_ was wrong. So very wrong. We'll get through this. I promise you we'll get through this."

↭

They've stopped trying. They focus on their obligations, on their sacred duties. She goes into battle with him at her side. Her brush paints the air as his spear cuts through sinew and bone. Dark blood is spilled over soil and concrete and stone. Lives are saved, lives are lost. They press forward, they move on.

Making love because they want to, and for no other purpose, they tumble into their bed together. Her fingers thread tight in his battle-messed and sweat-damp hair. His fingers press into the supple curve of her hips like their shape can save him from drowning in her. Blood streaks across his cheek from a blow he didn't quite block, and she still has dead leaves crushed into the tresses of her hair.

It's bliss again, like when they first made love, like when they were married. They fall into one another with joy and vigor, he brings her over more edges than she can count, with fingers and tongue and member, until her legs can't stop shaking and her words have lost all hope of coherency. When Tsubasa finally spills it feels like it lasts for hours, like it's spilling his life out of him along with his seed. He can barely breathe. He nearly passes out, collapsing beside her at the last moment, his final shred of reason urging him to not put the weight of his battle-honed muscles fully atop her, not when he's so boneless and spent.

Jabi whispers sweet words into his ear as he fights to regain his breath, her fingers gentle in his hair again: gliding through, brushing wet, sticky bangs off his brow. They kiss, slow and lazy and sweet, drinking in the wine of each other's lips like nectar. 

They sleep better than they have in all the time they can remember.

↭

She moves through the hamlet, one hand held in shield over her breaths as she tries to keep the acrid smoke from reaching into her lungs. Her eyes sting, tears at their corners that she wipes away with anger bordering on hatred. Mutilated bodies litter the streets, severed limbs hang out of broken windows, viscera dangles from tree branches and lanterns. The scent of spilled blood is almost sweet in the air, the sheer amount of it passing beyond the tang of iron to something much more cloying.

Fluids slick against his boots as he follows beside her, inky black in the moonless lack of light, shimmering in rainbows as the fires flicker and burn. If only it was oil. If only it wasn't blood and bile and bitter tears. His stomach turns. He sways, an unsteadiness in his legs that he hasn't felt since he was just a boy in training. Jabi's hand is a cool weight against his palm, grounding him, chasing the heat of rage and disgust back down from his throat.

"No one survived." He murmurs, soft as the rain he wishes would fall, would wash away the gore and tragedy. His chest shakes as he drags in a breath, exhaling in a great puff. "At least… at least we stopped it from wreaking any future havoc."

Her face is cold and hard as stone, her eyes black as lake ice. Her shoulders are held rigid and her jaw is clenched. He wants to touch her gently, to soothe away the rage she's feeling. But he knows it's justified, he knows it will only fuel her to fight harder and smarter in future battles. He knows that it will help keep her alive, as it always has before.

"Fire., she says, finally, as they near the center of the once joyous settlement. "I'm going to burn it. Burn everything. Give them a bright and shining funeral pyre."

Tsubasa nods, stepping back to bless her with the room she needs to work her spells. He turns away from her, knowing this type of priestly duty is a very private ritual for her. The hairs on his neck vibrate and sizzle as the magics fill the air, as purifying fire flows from her brush to cleanse away the evil and death that has laid ruin to these poor people.

It's only when he feels Jabi's hand slide into his again that he returns his gaze to her. He squeezes his hand, and she allows him to tug her toward the outskirts of the steadily razing village. When they've reached the line that separates the settlement from the woods they turn, eyes watering from the light and the heat and the smoke. Still, they watch. They stand vigil to honor the souls devoured by the Horror.

Somehow, over the roar of the flames and the crackling of crumbling wood, they hear a single cry: soft, but strong. Jabi's eyes widen as she raised her brush to the level of her eyes, but Tsubasa is already in motion, rushing toward the sound. He shoulders through a charring, flame weakened wall, the pleats of his armor twirling behind him before disappearing into the smoke.

Jabi might have shouted, might have called out his name in worry and reprimand. She stands fixed, frozen, but before she can force her limbs to rush her forward, before she can tumble into the pyre after her husband to try and help, Tsubasa is tumbling out of the blaze, crumbling to his knees as he sputters on ash. Her feet carry her to his side, and she kisses his cheeks even as she rains fists down against him.

Through her outrage and panicked relief she hears a second soft cry that stops her fists. She gapes at him for a moment that lasts a lifetime, then she forces her gaze downward, to the dirty bundle he holds clutched in his arms with such protection and care she is almost certain he would already die for it.

Out into the stillness of the makai wood rings the infant cry of the hamlet's lone survivor. Into their hearts echoes the cry of all their prayers being answered.


End file.
